Rare Books

The Scientific Revolution launched in the 1540s with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, an astronomical text that propounded a heliocentric view of the universe. Other early modern scientists also took advantage of printing technology as a relatively affordable and wide-reaching medium to disseminate their findings. Scientific societies, such as the Royal Society of London (est. 1660), inaugurated a new kind of scientific literature with the publication of academic journals. Another important intersection of printing technology and early scientific development was illustration. Precision in printed illustration and coloring became vital to identification and classification of the natural world.

In this section of the Rare Books LibGuide, you will find a description and sample list of Texas Tech University's history of science and technology collection as well as a list of resources to help you start researching historical scientific texts. The resource list includes catalogs and biographies related to the history of science as a whole as well as subject-specific reference works on botany, natural history, chemistry, medicine, mathematics and engineering, and electricity and magnetism.

The Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Koger History of Science Collection, established in 1963, forms the core of Texas Tech's holdings of antiquarian books on science and technology. You can find books from this collection by searching the TTU Libraries Online Catalog using the key phrase "Koger History of Science Collection." The Rare Books Collection is also strong in the works of American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002).

The following are some highlights from our history of science and technology collection:

General Reference

Botany

Natural History

Chemistry

Medicine

Mathematics and Engineering

Electricity and Magnetism